String of Bay Area banks collapse Child

By Ishaan Gupta ’26

In March, the United States saw its second biggest bank failure with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The bank was a banker toward 50 percent of all venture capital-funded technology and life sciences companies in the US. Ultimately, a series of events led to the bank’s downfall.

The Federal Reserve started to raise interest rates in order to fight inflation. Silicon Valley Bank’s clients started to withdraw money to meet their liquidity needs.

This was because the highinterest rates caused the market for public offerings to shut down many startups and increased the price of private fundraising. Because of the many withdrawals, SVB looked for a way to fund them.

To fund these large withdrawals, SVB decided to sell $21 billion investments, which resulted in a loss of $1.8 billion for the bank.

Once SVB publicly announced its $1.8 billion loss, the stock for SVB’s holding company called SVB Financial Group crashed at the market opening.

Many other major banks saw a drop in their stocks and more SVB customers withdrew their money, totaling $42 billion.

On March 10, trading was stopped for the SVB Financial Group Stock. Federal regulators decided that they would take over the bank to find a buyer. Customers were allowed to recover all their funds, including those without insurance after federal regulators announced emergency measures for the SVB failure.

After a few days, SVB Financial Group filed for bankruptcy. SVB was bought by First Citizens Bank.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was the largest bank collapse since 2008 when Washington Mutual imploded.

Two months later the San Francisco based regional bank First Republic closed and was acquired by JPMorgan Chase.

AP Economics teacher Vance Whipple said, “People lose confidence in the banks, they start pulling their money out, and their lack of confidence causes the bank to fail. Both SVB and First Republic had nothing wrong with their basics or financials; it was caused by interest rates going higher.” was being politically persecuted. Democrats approved of the accountability, whereas Republicans deemed it as election interference.

Regulators seized control after First Republic’s assets took a hit by the increasing interest rates, making depositors and investors nervous.

Now the 84 First Republic branches will reopen as part of JPMorgan, and the iconic logo of the swooping eagle frequently found around San Francisco will be phased out.

Trump critic GOP Senator Mitt Romney cited the legal limbo of Bragg elevating Trump’s charges to felonies instead misdemeanors.

At this, the DA stated that through the payment, Trump purposely hid damaging information from the public and violated laws in the process, meriting the escalation of the charges.

At the arraignment, the judge set the next court appearance date for Trump for Dec. 4.

Any conviction would not disqualify Trump from continuing his 2024 presidential campaign.

If public opinion polls amongst voters materialize, America will have a Biden Trump rematch for the next presidential election.

Labor Increasingly Prevalent Across States

By Sophie Bucker ’24 and Naomi Lin ’24

Driven by the economic desperation stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and the shut down of systems designed to protect children, migrant children primarily from Central America entering the United States without their parents are being exploited and financially coerced into working in factories.

According to Social Science Department Chair Cory Nelson, the origins of child labor date back to the first and second waves of immigration to America.

“[They came] from Europe [where] there was a lot of industrialization and companies would hire children to work the dangerous jobs because they could fit into tight places, typically garment work and mining.”

“Families who immigrated were poor and needed all their family to work to survive.”

Despite laws and efforts to curtail child labor, such as the creation of compulsory laws that required children to attend school, underground child labor is perpetually ongoing.

In fact, USA Today revealed that on Feb. 17, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that over 100 children as young as 13 years old were cleaning meat processing equipment using hazardous sanitation materials for a sanitation company.

This is not surprising to some.

Jake Beeman ’24, an AP U.S. History student, commented, “Most production chains involve child labor, and most corporations won’t get rid of it because they profit off of it.”

Furthermore, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed the Youth Hiring Act of 2023, certifing that children under the age of 16 are not required to obtain an employment certificate or verify their age.

As child labor is becoming increasingly tolerated in companies and prevalent nationwide, the public is seeking answers and accountability.

In terms of raising awareness, “child labor has always been started by grassroots movements,” said Nelson.

“I think now posting on social media and protesting is a great way, but contacting your local representatives is where change can be made.”

One step that the government could take to solve the crisis of child labor is to provide resources to children and their families.

As Beeman noted, “Children who have endured forced labor should have access to therapy and financial assistance from the government, especially since child labor stems from a greater issue of poverty.”